Blog

Scribe is in Beta

Online Christian Education can be hard at times. So, in an effort to help our adult learners, Nazarene Bible College has been working on a new Web based class discussion tool to replace Web Access, which is our current solution but really starting to show its age. Scribe, is a HUGE improvement over all current Web Access tools. So, what does this mean for our students? Simply put, Scribe provides features specifically designed to assist students with their assignments and class room discussion. This new class discussion tool is similar to a standard newsreader but is Web based and is actually very user and classroom friendly.

Beta testing actually began weeks ago on this new and improved discussion tool. So far, the testing has gone very well. Some bugs were found and fixed, along with a few new features that were added at the request of student testers. Nevertheless, the best thing was receiving all of the positive feedback. With such positive results, we are now expanding the test and adding new students every day.

Built from the ground up, this great tool is both easier and faster for class discussions and also has a lot of very intuitive changes. Using Scribe is a much better way to keep up with the class workload. For example, color coded messages can make it faster and more convenient to find the instructors notes or example posts. In order to help build community, the author’s picture and contact information is now displayed alongside their assignment or message. Furthermore, clicking on that picture will bring up their autobiography. There are times when it really helps to recall exactly who you are responding to when discussing a given topic in class.

Being Web based allows students to access their class discussion from any computer and perhaps more importantly, any type of computer. It is a cross platform solution and works on any Web enabled device. Additionally, Scribe remembers what has been read and what has not and what was being read and which class it was in. This can save considerable time and hassle when changing from computer to computer.

Properly formatting posted assignments is also very important. It helps separate a student’s actual work from other text like assignment directions etc. A cool feature added to Scribe is automatic assignment formatting. This allows students to basically complete a form and then let Scribe format it into a perfect assignment. This obviously helps both students and instructors by saving them precious time and effort. A built in spell and grammar checker is super convenient for quick responses. Another nice benefit of Scribe is that it will automatically include the proper word count.

These are only a few of the many qualities that Scribe has to offer. Again, we are happy to report that students and instructors have provided some very positive feedback. We are grateful for it all whether good or bad and with it, we have been able to make improvements and resolve some problems. We strive to support the efforts and success of our students and instructors. We believe Scribe will go a long way towards that effort. Thank you for all your prayers and support!

Nazarene Bible College is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission (HLC), a commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and the Commission on Accreditation of the Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE), and is approved by the United States Department of Education (USDE), the Colorado Commission on Higher Education (CCHE), and the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI).